Peyton Kepfer is a bright and loving 5 year old who wants nothing more than to be independent. He has Cerebral Palsy and Epilepsy, his doctors say they need to remove a portion of the left side of his brain, if not all of the left side, to help him stop having seizures every 3 to 10 seconds. He will need lots of therapy and care to help his right-brain learn how to do what his left-brain did. This ride will help to provide Peyton the care he needs post-surgery.

“Pey” It Forward! Poker Run for Peyton KepferSeptember 21

Open to all licensed vehicles. Non-riders can be a part of the festivities and may purchase meal only tickets at the door while supplies last. Start and end at Phoenix Hill Tavern.

The proceeds go to Peyton for medical expenses. For more information call (812) 406-7084 or click here to join event.

Brock’s Performance is donating an Exhaust System and a Speed and Strength Riding Jacket for Peyton’s Silent Auction the day of the poker Run. If you live in the Louisville area, we encourage you to go out and support a fellow rider and his family.

At a very young age of 11 months old I (Peyton’s mother) discovered that Peyton was not crawling like he should, which I didn’t find to be too alarming at first because his older brother, Spencer, army crawled first when he was little, but as I was cutting Peyton’s nails one day I was trying to get him to hold his toy in his right hand. He kept dropping it! Also,while cutting his nails I had cut too close on one of the fingers on his right hand and got his skin. It started to bleed a bit. Peyton never flinched, or cried. He never knew he was hurt. I had an appointment scheduled for him that day anyways to get his ears checked, as I thought he had an ear infection. While I was at the doctor I asked them about what I had observed. They referred us to see a doctor in Louisville. We didn’t want to wait the two weeks to get into this particular doctor (neurologist) so we took him to Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, KY. While there he went for a MRI and a CT scan. The doctor came into the room, some time later and told us that our son has a mild case of Cerebral Palsy, to make an appointment at his office where he could see him further.

Not long after this we contacted First Steps of Southern IN to begin in home therapies. Peyton was qualified to get Occupation, Physical and Speech therapy. He did therapy wonderfully and his therapist were all GREAT! Peyton was walking good, with just a slight limp, his speech was good and he was moving around at a decent pace with life. When Peyton turned 3 he graduated from First Steps and was then able to go on to Preschool. Peyton had a great 2.5 years of Preschool with Mrs. Angi and Riverside Elementary. Peyton at this point had started to have seizures when he was just 16 months old and was having them every 6 months almost on the dot. In March of 2013 his doctor decided to change his seizure medicines a bit according to his age, and weight and to what changes he was gong through. He was then put on a medication called Ethosuximide 250mg. I was so scared in giving him this medicine because any changes in seizure meds can be dangerous. But I did as the doctor ordered. That night he had 4 seizures in a short amount of time. The last one he was limp and his lips turned blue, I called 911 and took him to Kosair’s Children’s hospital where he stayed for 3 days and we learned he had an allergic reaction to the medication and never should have been put on it. He was then released to go back to school, by May he was graduated from Preschool and was moving on to Kindergarten. Since March he had gotten worse. He was falling more than he was up and walking, he was having head drop seizures, and he was stuttering all the time. He would get to where his whole body would jerk and twitch all the time and we had to put an end to it.

We admitted him to Kosair Children’s Hospital on July 29, 2013 to “detox” him off of the three seizure meds he was on at the time. Me, my boyfriend, his dad, his dads girlfriend, my mom and sisters all thought that Peyton was over medicated. We finally got a good doctor, one who saw what we was talking about.

Peyton then under went several test while spending a week in the hospital. He had many seizures, some we needed him to have to get a particular test done. All the others we didn’t want but got anyways.

We got released from the hospital on Monday August 5, 2013 on different meds and he was starting to become his old self again. On Friday August 9th, 2013 at 2:00p.m. several of his doctors got together (neurologist, surgeon, neurophysiology doctor and a few others) to discuss his test results and see what recommendations they could come up with. I got the call that evening around 5:53p.m. from his neurologist letting me know that they had decided the best thing to do for my little Peyton is to go in and completely remove the whole left side of his brain! Big news, I know. I about dropped the phone. My son is 5 for God’s sake! But she informed me that the PET scan that was done at the hospital showed lots of seizure activity (3 discharges to every 10 seconds) and that the left side of the brain looks to be about “dead” anyways. He will have a test done hopefully this week that is called a FMRI (functional MRI) to see what kind of language and cognitive skills that he still has and uses on the left side of his brain. We are hoping he has already trained his brain to transfer all that information to the right side.

We will have a meeting with the surgeon next week to have questions answered and see where we stand with things.

The numerologist and the surgeon want to move things along quickly as we don’t want Peyton to get worse, and he will with time if we let this go. His seizures will get worse and more often and he will lose his language and cognitive skills. We will be meeting with the numerologist as well in the next week to two weeks to do the same thing. Peyton has also undergone casting (restraint casting) in the past to force him to use his week arm and hand (which is the right side) and botox injections to loosen up the tight muscles in his right side. It has not been an easy journey for my baby boy but we WILL get him better and he will be a “normal” little boy again with HOPEFULLY NO MORE SEIZURES!!!! 🙂

My babies are the light of my life, and no I didnt’ think this could happen to me or my family, but it has and we WILL make it through and we will be a happier and closer family after all this is said and done. Please continue to pray as we have a long road ahead of us.